features guest appearances
from Freak Kitchen’s Mattias ‘Ia’ Eklundh and Bjorn Fryklund and session bass
legend Lars Danielson.
‘Run Away’ video
‘Too Damn Cute’ video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD5QAGEwIb4&feature=relmfu
What on Earth makes a man
release a new solo album twenty-one years after his debut
release?
It’s a very good question,
and the answer is simple; an unrelenting passion and love for writing
songs.
Back in what seems like a
lifetime ago Danish singer/songwriter Torben Schmidt was the vocalist,
songwriter and mastermind behind the successful Danish melodic rock band
Skagarack. The band enjoyed a healthy career, including a Grammy win and an
appearance at the prestigious Reading Rock festival, but as the Nineties rolled
around front man Torben Schmidt put the band on hold to release his critically
acclaimed solo debut, ‘A Bit On The Side’.
Skagarack recorded one album
before the band split.
Torben then concentrated on
his production company and record label and worked behind the scenes. States
Torben, ‘I produced and recorded many great artists, working with music business
partners around the world, and it’s all been good and fulfilling, since I was
never really a sucker for the fame thing anyway... But the one thing that never
left me was the passion for writing songs, I just can’t help it, there is always
a song in the back of my mind.’
And neither have Torben’s
fans forgotten him. ‘Fans and friends have asked me many times over the years,
if and when I would release a new album, and I always answered “next year, next
year”. ‘Well, I have said “next year” so many times that it became
embarrassing… So, about three years ago I actually started to record a bunch of
my song ideas, and before I knew it I had the eleven songs that are featured on
“Long Story Short”. I don’t know if these eleven songs are the best of those I
have been working on (on/off) over the last three years, but these are the ones
I finished first! There is no real concept as such over the album, there’s a
definite Westcoast/country feel on a lot of the songs, which I really like, but
it’s not a whole album of that kind of stuff. It feels good to finally have the
album completed. Twenty one years isn’t that long to wait. Is
it?’
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